Intercontinental Exchange has begun trading cash-settled cryptocurrency futures linked to seven CoinDesk indices, including broad-market and single-asset contracts for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and BNB. The new futures are dollar-settled and aimed at institutions seeking crypto price exposure without the operational and custody challenges of holding tokens directly.
ICE plans to introduce One Month CoinDesk Overnight Rates USDC futures, pending regulatory review, to bring on-chain interest rates into regulated markets and expand crypto’s role as a funding and credit market. Such moves aim to reflect on-chain borrowing costs in a regulated setting and broaden crypto’s use as a funding mechanism. The contracts went live on Monday after being announced Jan. 9, ICE said, offering cash-settled, U.S. dollar-denominated futures linked to seven CoinDesk indices. The CoinDesk 20, ICE said, is designed to represent most of the digital asset market through a capped market-cap weighted methodology.
Such rate products shift the conversation toward crypto as a funding and credit market, where traders can express views on borrowing costs and liquidity conditions rather than only whether Bitcoin goes up or down. ICE also pointed to the scale already built around CoinDesk indices, noting tens of billions of dollars are tied to the benchmarks.
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